Quote:
Originally Posted by charlene
http://www.yorkregion.com/localprofi...lling-it-quits
By Simon Martin
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Dec 03, 2011 - 9:18 AM
Mr. James remembers the days when pin boys would manually have to set the pins. “They’d get five cents a game,” he laughed. A young Gordon Lightfoot was his pin monkey once in Orillia. “Can’t say he was very good at it,” he said.
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I am unsure why the game being described has only five pins.But I do know that the original game of Skittles as still played in UK pubs ( I was in a team until 2000) has always had a set of NINE pins.
In that form it was also played in the colonies that became the United states.Or I should say was played until the UK government of the day unwisely decided to levy a tax on those playing NINE Pin bowling.But the hornery Americans stuck two fingers up at the Brits (not for the last time (think Tea and Boston!!) and by adding a tenth pin legally got out of being taxed. Anyway as an old skttles player it was interesting to read the name "pin monkey" because in our games the young hired hard working hands are rather more prosaically always called "sticker-uppers"!!
A quick Google revealed that they even have a facebook page:-
www.facebook.com/pages/Im-a-sticker-upper/303099264740
"I'm a
sticker upper - this is a page for those who stick up skittles at thier (sic) local skittle alley. feel free to invite others, start a discussion and comment.
(twice that page refused to open for me)
__________________
"Sir" John Fowles Bt
Honorary Curator Bootleg Museum
(where Sir does not signify that I am a fully benighted Knight just a Bt which signifies a humble Baronet -?? read the wiki!)
I meant no one no harm
Once inside we found a curious moonbeam
Doing dances on the floor